The SBU refused twice to agree to NABU’s motion to impose sanctions on Yura “Yenakiieve”

They didn’t even respond to the most recent public request.

The Security Service of Ukraine twice refused the National Anti-Corruption Bureau’s request to initiate the imposition of sanctions against former People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions, who is a figure in the case about land fraud at the Stolychnyi market, Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, Bureau Director Semen Kryvonos said at a press conference on 10 August.

“We appealed to the SBU twice asking them to impose sanctions against a well-known former Party of Regions deputy who was recently spotted by journalist Mykhailo Tkach in Monaco. The first time the SBU wrote that it saw no grounds for imposing such sanctions,” Kryvonos said.

He added that afterwards NABU clarified the information and indicated that the SBU itself had reported that this person was an agent of the 5 service of the FSB.

“There has been no response to this so far, although there was a heated public discussion and even some reaction there when we publicly called for the imposition of the relevant sanctions. But for some reason such sanctions have not been imposed, although we are ready to point out again that they were the ones who made that claim. We have corresponding evidence about Russian passports and about control of business in the occupied territories. But they have some relevant information,” Kryvonos said.

He gave another example when the SBU handed a notice of suspicion to NABU employee Ruslan Mahomedrasulov and claimed a whole set of evidence that later was not confirmed. Moreover, Kryvonos noted that NABU still feels pressure because of that case and “constantly registers calls from certain departments of the Security Service of Ukraine.”

Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, known as Yura Yenakiieve, was one of Viktor Yanukovych’s key associates. He left Ukraine in December 2014 and now lives with his family in Monaco. In January 2015 he was declared wanted on suspicion of embezzlement and misappropriation of property through abuse of official position, extortion, and receiving unlawful benefits as an official. In 2017 the Supreme Court of Ukraine closed the criminal cases against him. That same year Ivanyushchenko was removed from the EU sanctions lists, and Interpol several times removed him from international search on the basis of decisions by Ukrainian courts.

For its part, in early September 2025 NABU notified suspicions to Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, Vladyslava Molchanova, former head of the Kyiv Regional Department of the StateGeoCadastre Mykola Tereshchenko, and two other persons under part 5 of article 191 (misappropriation, embezzlement of property or seizure of it through abuse of official position) and part 3 of article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (legalization (money laundering) of proceeds obtained by criminal means). According to the investigation, in spring 2021 during a corporate conflict over control of the Stolychnyi market in a Kyiv suburb they decided to transfer the market’s assets to controlled legal and natural persons. This concerns 9 land plots with a total area of 18 hectares. On the basis of sham transactions the land was sold to three companies connected to Molchanova.

In October last year the High Anti-Corruption Court arrested Ivanyushchenko in absentia. However, his arrest was lifted in December.

On 20 March 2026 ZN.UA learned that NABU and the SAP were conducting searches in courts and among representatives of the Office of the Prosecutor General as part of the Ivanyushchenko case. The matter concerns an attempt to lift the arrest on about 72 million Swiss francs (just over 91 million dollars — ed.), which remain blocked in Switzerland, and to close the criminal proceedings against Ivanyushchenko. // ZN.UA